The Duke of Brunswick’s Vase.—This is one of the finest monuments we have yet seen, which has reference to the mysteries and sacrifices of Ceres and Bacchus. It is a precious vase, made of one single piece of onyx, from the cabinet of the Duke of Brunswick, and of the size represented in the engraving. It was published, and learnedly explained, in 1682, by Jean Henry Eggeling, and printed in the same year. This vase is of a singular form; has one handle, and on the other side a spout, which begins at the bottom, and finishes by a bend towards the top, to pour out the liquor. Eggeling believes that this vase is of the number of those the ancients called guttus, because the liquor came out drop by drop: he comes to that conclusion from a passage of Varro—“Quo vinum dabant, ut minutatim funderent, a guttis guttum appellarunt.” The vase is divided in three parts by two bands of gold, by which it is girdled: that of the middle, which forms the largest space, contains also a larger number of figures. The third diminishes towards the foot, and has figures also, all of which represent the mysteries and sacrifices of Ceres and Bacchus.
The reader will probably feel interested how this vase came into the possession of the Duke of Brunswick. It was in the cabinet of the Duke of Mantua. When that city was taken and sacked, in 1629, a soldier, who had possession of the vase, offered it to Francis Albert, Duke of Lower Saxony, his commander, who gave him a hundred ducats as a reward. This prince left it by will to the Princess Christina Marguerite of Mecklenburg, his wife, who left it in the same way to her sister, the Princess Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick. She also gave it by will to her son, Ferdinand Albert, Duke of Brunswick. The lapidaries thought so much of it, that they offered, in turn, from sixty to ninety thousand imperials. In the inventory of the Princess Sophia it was valued at one hundred and fifty thousand imperials.[T]
The municipal bodies adopted them. At the entrance of Charles VII. into Paris, one of this kind was seen in the Rue St. Denis:—“One of the tubes spouted milk, another vermilion-coloured wine, another white wine, and another pure water; and persons stood all round with silver cups to give drink to the passers-by.”
In the 17th century playing fountains were still used at repasts.[XXXI_34]
XXXII.
THE TABLE.
It is pretended, says Athenæus, that in the Homeric times each guest had a table to himself,[XXXII_1] on which he was served with “a saddle-back of beef, or a whole sheep or goat.” It was the custom among the heroes, all men of high lineage, and tolerably aristocratic in their tastes. The burghers of those warlike times and the villeins of the epoch eat their dinner, without form or ceremony, on a heap of grass, which also served them as a seat or couch.[XXXII_2]